In budget fight, blame all around

Between the return to power of a wonky, two-term former governor who promised a direct attack on Sacramento’s dysfunction and the enactment of an initiative that would financially punish state lawmakers for not passing a budget in timely fashion, there was hope that this year’s budget debate would be different.

And it has been. Today is the day that the state Constitution mandates a 2011-12 budget must be in place. There is a fair chance a spending plan will pass the Legislature, whose members otherwise would begin forfeiting pay and per diem compensation Thursday.

Yet in fundamental ways, this budget scrum has been another disappointment. If the Legislature does pass a budget today, it is reportedly expected to be full of gimmicks to paper over a $10 billion gap between revenue and planned expenditures. Since the adoption of the budget would put lawmakers in compliance with Proposition 25, this means their state paychecks wouldn’t be interrupted.

But there’s plenty of blame to go around beyond just complaining about the prospect of the adoption of yet another gimmicky state budget.

Brown has talked big and made many showy changes, such as taking back tens of thousands of state-issued cell phones. But he hasn’t followed through on promises to aggressively reduce costly retirement benefits and to launch a “vast and historic” consolidation of government operations. He also signed an indefensibly generous contract with the prison guards’ union that is incompatible with his claim to be the enforcer of a newly frugal Sacramento status quo.

The Democrats who control the Legislature continue to frame the budget debate as being a battle between malign corporate interests and struggling Californians. But polls show a majority of those struggling Californians oppose the higher taxes that Democrats continue to seek as a budget fix. They also don’t seem to understand that helping the private-sector economy to rebound would help increase state revenue.

The Republican lawmakers who can prevent tax hikes or extensions of tax hikes because of the two-thirds’ requirement for passing tax measures say they are doing what voters want. But if they believe that, they should have settled long ago with Brown on a compromise in which a special election were held on extending the expiring tax hikes in tandem with measures on pension reform, a state spending cap and perhaps regulatory changes meant to encourage job growth. If voters agreed with the GOP, they’d have rejected the tax hikes and adopted the other changes.

All in all, it’s difficult to disagree with Brown’s observation Monday that California would be better off with more adult leadership. But he hasn’t yet proved himself the transformative governor we’d hoped. And the Legislature remains the Legislature – for worse and worse.